


The Scientific Method

by SaladThief



Series: The Scientific Method [1]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Drunkenness, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lots of headcannons here, Slight Angst?, There's not too much angst I promise, Wilson is still a funnyman, Wilson reminiscing sadly about things, backstory headcannons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaladThief/pseuds/SaladThief
Summary: Wilson has been on his own for a while, focusing on his studies in seclusion. He tells himself it's to help him concentrate and to keep his mind on his work, but is that really why he's kept himself in this old shack in the mountains? Or is he running from something he can't bear to face?With the only thing to accompany his blank thoughts being memories long past and the ones in the ancient floorboards creaking beneath his shoes, Wilson ponders distant faces and voices from his time spent up until this point in his life.What has Higgsburry suffered through to bring him to such a low point in his life? Will he ever be able to undo whatever he's done?





	1. The Element of Solitude

The hollow and light bubbling of chemicals was almost music to Wilson’s ears, though in all honesty, just about anything seemed musically inclined to him these days. Solitude unfortunately lacked sufficient sound and tune that one would normally gain in daily society, but it at least provided ample time and opportunity to sink into deep spans of concentration.

With dark eyes, he stared intensely at his folded hands while slouched over the old and chemical-stained coffee table. One leg was slightly shorter than its sister limbs, and was propped up by a single dictionary, which for a long time Wilson found to be slightly humorous (and even charming), but after dwelling on the fact, it only seemed to depress him slightly. The condition of the entire shack his operations were situated in was dilapidated and run-down, making the condition of the table match in a comically sad way. Once upon a time, this shack was new. Back then it was called a home.

The young scientist felt a wad of loathing settle deep into his chest as he quickly shook his head, trying to physically dispel these awful memories from settling into his head and nesting in his thoughts like a crooked and cackling corvid, crooning his own worst dreams back to him with a beaky grin. He gripped his chest with a grimace, feeling his emotions almost physically. The weight in his heart ached so heavily. It reminded him of… why… it reminded him of…-

* * *

  
“…-Lead!”

  
The thick glass container was slammed onto the table, causing the deathly black dust inside to swirl around in an obsidian twister.

Wilson, with much younger eyes void of the wrinkles that time and sleepless nights inflicted upon the faces of older and more troubled men, seemed to glow with intrigue. “Lead?” he repeated the word in a bewildered tone.

“You heard me correct, Percival, my dear boy!” In a similar fashion, the man who was Wilson’s current age (now he would be much older of course), grinned down at his adoring fan. “Lead, a dangerous substance, though quite boring and unattractive in most senses, holds many interesting secrets…”

Wilson was listening to the older gentleman’s words of course, but his movements enraptured the young boy and seemed to almost mesmerize him. His hands seemed to talk along with him, waving around and exaggerating his words as if he were performing some sort of wicked incantation. It would be fitting though, since in a way, He resembled a fantastic magician. His stately top hat, though worn and stained, gave him a distinguished air that conflicted with the wild swirls of his strawberry-honey hair and beard. As far as Wilson was concerned though, this man really was a magician of sorts… A magician of the natural world.

Wilson couldn’t help but glance up at him with a conflicted and skeptical gaze when he snapped out of his trance, but this only made the gentleman chortle in amusement.  
  
“I can tell by your countenance that you are distrustful, my boy, but I speak the truth!” He motioned towards the container in a mystical manner, with the dust contained within having long settled after its thrilling introduction. “Lead,” he continued, “Is the product of hundreds of years of decay… and its original form, believe it or not, is the very volatile and super-reactive element referred to as… URANIUM!”

Another slam on the table, this time by his bare hands, rocked it and caused the book beneath its newer (though still obviously too short) leg to slip out from under. The downward slope of the furniture caused the glass container to slide into Wilson’s eager hands, preventing it from smashing onto the hardwood laminate floorboards below. “U-uranium?”  
  
The gentleman nodded again, that eager smile of his growing across his cheeks as if the corners of his lips were a hot blade slicing through butter. “Uranium, boy!!” He leaned back and away from the table, clasping his hands together ecstatically.

“Percy, this world is full of so many surprises… you must always look at things through an eye of curiosity if you wish to see them. Even the most unassuming little object could hold the secrets of the universe…”

Wilson seemed a bit hesitant about this. Anything? Really? “…But Mister Adley, sir…That’s almost a bit ridiculous to suggest…”

The older man simply raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, waiting for Wilson to continue. This was one of the things he liked about this man… how he took him seriously, though Wilson was less than half of his age, and allowed him to pose questions and arguments that conflicted with his own.

Wilson went on. “Well, it’s just that… how is anyone supposed to take someone seriously if they question every little thing about our natural world, sir?”

Mr. Adley seemed to actually grow more excited at the question, looming over Wilson in an almost intimidating way, but it held the benevolence of a caring mentor that set him at ease.

“Who are we to deny the scientific advancement of the human race for the sake of saving face among disapproving peers? If the great philosophers and scientists of the Greeks, Romans, and all historical legacies decided to keep to themselves in fear of being ostracized, we’d still be slamming our heads into the mud and throwing rocks in damp caves for entertainment!”

Wilson was taken aback by his passion, but it kindled a small flame in the boy’s heart, and further did it kindle by his following words.

“It’s always better to be laughed at than to be wrong.”

* * *

The sentence echoed through Wilson’s mind like a distant songbird’s call. It was meaningless to him at the moment; it only amounted to a ghost image in the back of his mind. It was a projection of times long past… dead realities.

Once his mind caught up with its own fleeting thoughts, Wilson simply sighed and brushed them from his conscience’s pane, scratching nervously at his glove. It left a hollow dragging sound, and he hated the texture of fingernails on fabric, but he needed some form of a stimulus to serve as a distraction. He hoped keeping his mind on his work would keep it from drifting into more maddening thoughts here on his lonesome, but there were always spans of time between tasks; be it studying, writing, or conducting experiments.

“…Stars...” It was yet another word he muttered to take up the empty space in the air before standing up.

Suddenly, as if it were the static of a broken or poorly-tuned radio, the bubbling within the glass tubes situated on his worktable sizzled back into Wilson’s attention. He quickly made his way over now that his remembered purpose invigorated him, and he hastily shut off the burners that metal wires and clamps were holding glass tubes over. He leaned over, staring through the test tubes with a calculated eye. He rubbed his hand thoughtfully over the slight stubble now lining his chin after a few missed appointments with his razor. Which one…

He plucked up the nearest one, sloshing around the green fluid inside before grabbing a beaker and pouring it in carefully. He reached up to the shelf above the worktable quickly, flicking his wrist up to snatch a jar with a somewhat faded label that was filled with some form of a grain. The Scientist did not hesitate to pour in half the container into the beaker holding the liquid before quickly grinding together both substances into a foul-smelling paste.

To anyone else watching, everything Wilson was doing was surely an enigma, but to him, his actions were calculated, intelligent, and meaningful. All that he was doing was narrowing down to his specific goal of proving the existence of an element (or group of elements) not yet known to science. A new member to join its comrades on the famous periodic table! Perhaps, Wilson mused, He’d become famous beyond his wildest dreams. Perhaps he would re-arrange the periodic table on his own! What an honor that would be, to have his findings and models be revered and widely accepted by the scientific community- No, the world! But he wouldn’t take all the credit. No, he’s no scumbag. He’d attribute it to the person he knew deserved it the most…

…but enough on that. With a wholesomely excited grin that would probably belong more properly on the lips of a young boy, Wilson snatched up a separate test tube, and unlike the other, this one was filled with a putrid and inky-black liquid. Knowing that this was his moment of truth and the mark of the glory his future would hold, Wilson did not hesitate to carefully pour the liquid into the beaker in his other hand. This was it. This was the time. The time he’d finally show them all that he was right! Not just that he was right, but also-

POOF!!!

Wilson didn’t even get a chance to prepare himself for the onslaught on his senses that the explosion of smoke coming from the beaker in his fist had assaulted him with. He coughed and gagged hideously, waving away the putrid (and probably toxic) chemical gasses fogging up his vision. As soon as they dissipated, he stared forward blankly, but with a bewildered sadness to his gaze, before simply turning his emotions to frustration and bringing his hand to his face in a heavy sigh. Though his hair was blasted back in the minor explosion, he could feel it sink back into its un-tamable shape (it was the curse of having such genetics), causing him another bit of stress on top of what his failed experiment had brought him. He wiped the soot from his cheeks and brow before carelessly placing the glassware back onto the worktable and flopping back into an old, musty armchair.

What he wouldn’t give for some music right now. Some bustle. Even hustle! God, it was hard not to get over your head in misery over even the smallest of occurrences in utter solitude. He glared forward while the events of today and days past weighed on his shoulders, nipping at the back of his skull like a bitter spouse or a small dog. The only sound he had become accustomed to at this point was the sounds of his own mind relaying the same things over and over again. Disembodied voices of faces he wanted to forget berated him all over again, gloating in his defeat. They’d tell him, ‘Say, didn’t you know it would turn out this way? With theories here and there already proving the impossibility of these things, a sane man would’ve turned his head towards more rational fields of study,’ or ‘Say, didn’t you know you wouldn’t be able to handle living on your lonesome like this? You should’ve stayed in University like I told you,’ or-

“Say, Pal….”

And Wilson could feel his blood run cold...  
  
  
  
  
  
~~~~


	2. Strange Frequencies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mysterious men in radios and wooden boards are the only company Wilson has had in a long time, and despite his joy of finally having a friend to talk to, and one that can help him with proving his theories, Wilson isn't sure this 'Maxwell' is entirely trustworthy...

Not often does one find themselves putting their full trust into creepy disembodied voices coming from appliances that generally shouldn’t be able to provide 2-way sequences of dialogue. Unfortunately for one man, every plan seems exponentially less terrible if you say “it’s for science,” before you do it.

Wilson was at first shocked at the prospect of some posh, stuck-up sounding voice edging its way through the radio’s speaker. He just picked it up a few weeks ago from one of his rare hikes into the neighboring town, expecting it to be able to provide him some sort of solace from the all-encompassing silence of the wilderness surrounding the shack. It was a brand-new model, a Voxola PR-76, and he was excited to have something shiny and nice to liven up his environment. Unfortunately, he did not anticipate that the reason he got such a thing for so cheap was the fact that there weren’t any radio towers close enough for it to pick up a clear signal. Most of the stations at his disposal ranged from Static, to even more static, to silence, and then to some sort of station playing this new southern fad of music called ‘country’. Needless to say, Wilson preferred silence (and perhaps death) over that, so the radio remained off for most of the days following its purchase. This is why the voice particularly surprised Wilson; hearing a clear sound from it was one thing, but also the fact it was working while not switched on was equally as shocking.

However, he was surprisingly less floored over someone communicating to him through an appliance than he was when hearing something other than banjos. Perhaps in the midst of the excitement this brought on, he wholeheartedly voiced his interest to this strange and Mysterious man’s offer of “SECRET KNOWLEDGE”. What did it entail? Why was he offering this to Him, some shack rando? These were just two of the questions on Wilson’s mind. He posed them to him, but the silky deep voice behind the speaker assured Wilson it would reward him with the scientific breakthrough he’d been yearning so painfully for.

Maybe it was because he was so drained and vulnerable from the silence, or maybe it was because he had nowhere else to turn to and no one else to help him. Maybe it was even the prospect of having his wildest dreams fulfilled that compelled the scientist’s decision. No matter what the reason really was, Wilson had agreed to obtain this alleged knowledge, unknowingly sealing his doom for what would be the most twisted and horrifying rabbit hole that he’d ever stumble down.

At least for the moment, Wilson wouldn’t have to worry about the darkness or the creatures lurking within its inky film. Right now, he was gathering together wooden planks to drag into his workshop, panting under the stress of manual work.

“You don’t get a whole lot of exercise, do you, pal?”

Wilson felt a little irked by the radio’s comment, and turned to give it a slightly disapproving look. “Hey, I don’t see you coming out of your comfy little box to help me out!”

The man on the other side let out an impatient huff. “Well, if I could, I would have at this point. You’re dragging out the process quite a bit. We don’t even have all the supplies we need yet.”

Wilson swiped a handkerchief across his brow, standing up straight to take a small break. “Alright chatterbox, I’m working on it!”

“I have a name you know.”

Wilson raised an eyebrow before glancing back at the little thing. “Well, you’ve neglected to give it to me properly, so if you’d rather me call you by your name, I’d like to know it, sir.”

The radio seemed to hesitate. Wilson found it a bit unnerving that it could somehow see him and such, but the scientist would never be able to catch a glimpse of the other man’s body language or appearance. Hesitations were just silence without an expression to apply. However, at this point, Wilson was assured of the man’s good intentions, so the lack of it wasn’t so bad. To be honest, not having to remember another face may have been a blessing.

“You can call me Maxwell, pal. Just Maxwell.”

“…Just Maxwell?”

The man in the radio let out an affirmative grunt.

Wilson grinned. “Alright, ‘Just Maxwell,’ _my_ name is Wilson P. Higgsbury, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance! Also, the ‘P’ stands for Percival, before you get any funny ideas about that.”

Maxwell sounded less amused than prior, which was a remarkable feat for someone who already seemed utterly done with the little man’s shenanigans. “I already knew your name,” he grumbled.

Wilson went back to stacking boards, panting in-between sentences. “That’s not unnerving in the slightest!”

“Why else would I contact you in particular, Mister Higgsbury? You may think of your circumstances unremarkable, but I know of your undying dedication to the sciences…”

Wilson would usually feel a bit bashful when being praised, but there was something about the other man’s tone that set Wilson at a slight unease. He disregarded the feeling for the most part, certain it was a product of his time spent alone.

“You… know of my passions, then?” He lifted another board while letting out a strained grunt. “…I only wrote articles in my younger days, and even then, they weren’t widely distributed or officially published,” he mumbled.

‘Or accepted,’ his thoughts chided back to him.

“Well, I’m not a man to glaze over such things.” The man on the other side interrupted Wilson’s private thoughts with an almost cunning spike in his tone. “I heard whispers of you on the wings of little birds, and I just _had_ to meet you for myself. No- more than that… I had to help you confirm your theories prove to the world that your views were truly as meaningful and important that gentlemen like us know they are.”

He chuckled softly, and his voice was smooth yet gravely, like that of a somewhat older man. “My only regret is that I couldn’t do it in person, since I am in a much more... _strenuous_ position than what would allow me to.”

Wilson listened along carefully. He wouldn’t lie that he felt flattered by the obvious praise of his intellect, but there was a sickly sense of something that wasn’t quite genuine pervading Maxwell’s words that struck a bad note with the scientist. He side-eyed the Radio.

“And that situation would be…?” He motioned with his wrist for Maxwell to continue.

Though he was obviously trying to hide it, Wilson could hear the ghost of Maxwell’s chuckle get picked up from the radio’s sensitive inner workings.

“As much as you may think of me vague, I am honestly unable to relay to you the specifics of my situation, pal. Though I did gift you the knowledge that heightened your perception of many things, there are just too many complications that I can’t explain right now. You’ll just have to trust me, and once you build the device you need, I promise you that everything will have light shed upon it.”

Though he had that same nagging suspicion crawling along the base of his spine, it became dulled to a point that he barely acknowledged it. Maxwell, as Wilson had discovered, was a master at easing his easily anxious mind. It was a trait that he felt comforted by, not knowing that the technical term for it was actually _manipulation_.

“…Sorry, I didn’t mean to act so suspicious.” Wilson paused. “But you have to admit that this is a very ridiculous situation.”

The man behind the radio kept quiet, as if waiting for Wilson to clarify. How he didn’t instantly agree with the sentiment, the younger man didn’t understand.

“Well- I mean, put yourself in my shoes!” He turned to face the radio while placing his hands on his hips. “Imagine you’re minding your own business, when some radio man literally injects knowledge into you in some unfathomable swirl of tangible darkness- And let me tell you, I can’t wait for you to explain that one next!” He let out a single ‘ha,’ exaggerated by a wave of his left hand. “If I didn’t know better, I would’ve come to the conclusion that I was mad, and checked myself into an Asylum!” He tossed his hands up in the air as if to exaggerate the fact.

“Your hands are very expressive, Mister Higgsbury.”

He nearly continued his ramble, but the sudden comment caused the smile on Wilson’s face to fade a bit. “…Do I really?”

Maxwell let out an amused sigh. “You’ve been doing it this entire time, like some kind of conductor. It was almost as entertaining as when you were going on about your taste in music earlier.”

Wilson stayed quiet for a while. He once again wanted to question how he could see what he was doing through a sound-based device, but he decided that asking wouldn’t produce a clear answer anyway. He merely glanced to the side and shrugged.

“I’m an expressive person, what can I say.”

“…I can’t imagine how that of all things struck a nerve with you.”

Wilson brushed off the comment, leaning down to pick up one of the last boards. “Nerve? No, don’t worry. All my nerves have been gone for years.” He grinned lazily back at the radio. “It was due to a lab explosion. Don’t ever play darts next to nitroglycerin, by the way.”

Though he couldn’t see it, Wilson could feel Maxwell roll his eyes behind the radio. “Sure, Mister Higgsbury. Sure. Just get back to work.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very short chapter (I'm sorry), but the next one is much longer, so stay tuned! it's coming out much faster than this one has, so don't worry.


	3. Cheap Wine and Lamentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilson has never slept well at night, and often would go days without shuteye in order to not get forced off his high of natural-born excitement. However, when the need to sleep finally hit, pulling himself out of the funk his restless dreams put him in when he awakened was never a particularly pretty process.
> 
> After waking up drenched in a cold sweat, Wilson decided after a quick shower to make his way to town and pick himself up something he hadn't tasted for nearly 10 years.

Grass always seemed more mysterious on the Midwestern roads; the young man mused this to himself as his head bumped gently against the buggy window. He mused a lot of things to himself, since a lot of the things his mind presented in the form of whimsical observations and grand ideas were too embarrassing to share. At the very least, he was convinced they were.

“…Wilson, sit up straight. It’s not polite to lean your head against the window like that.”

He let out a quiet sigh through his nose before sitting up straight and folding his hands together in his lap. He kept his eyes trained on his thumbs as they rolled over one another, rubbing idly against the edges of his thumbnails.

“This is an important event,” he was reprimanded. “I can’t have you going off into another one of your daydreams right before you need to make an impression.”

His half-lidded eyes glazed over to the side. Though he was not tired, the tenseness of the situation left him in an undesirable state. His right hand slid off his lap, and his fingers traced the plush red velvet beneath their tips in slow strokes before rubbing the comforting texture slightly.

“Wilson, are you even listening to me? Hands in your lap, you’re a grown man.”

Wilson grunted in slight annoyance before folding his hands back together. His eyes flicked up to catch the scornful gaze of the woman’s across from him, but he quickly looked back down at his thumbs once again as they methodically stroked over each other’s nails.

“You’re nearly twenty years old, and you ought to start acting up to it. You _know_ how important it is that you get into this university, and your father is counting on you. _I’m_ counting on you.”

Despite her tone, the older woman’s features softened. Though her face was time-worn and wrinkled, and her hair was frosting over with increasing intensity, the way her eyes turned amber in the light made her look almost ethereal. Wilson thought that she could have been considered a beautiful person, if she had anything other than bitterness occupying the space her heart left behind.

Wilson managed a smile of sorts, but it was more of just a slight tug at the corner of his lips. “I’m afraid I don’t have any numbers on me for you to be counting. Maybe you should’ve had that chat with our optometrist after all, Mother.”

Any kindness in the woman’s gaze shriveled up and died in an instant.

“Wilson! I am not playing around here! I shouldn’t have to reprimand an adult, but here I am, telling a grown man to quit acting so childish.”

She leaned forward, causing her pearls to clink against one another in a ridiculous symphony of rich pretentiousness.

“You listen to me now, and you listen well.” Her eyes narrowed viciously as she continued. “Tonight, you’re going to get your head out of the clouds for good. No more fantasizing over vials and tinctures alone in your room all day. No more obsessing over those old books of my brother’s. There are responsibilities in your life you have to look after, child. Your family’s legacy is far more important than playing pretend with chemicals all day.” She leaned back and obsessively smoothed out her dress. “So! tonight you’re going to impress those professors, and you’re going to do it well.”

Wilson simply let the berating flood wash over him in the midst of her rage, knowing that nothing he would be able to say could quell Adelaide Higgsbury’s 2nd outburst that evening. He simply waited patiently for her to be done before he tugged slightly at his collar.

“I’d never do anything to embarrass, mother,” Wilson muttered unconvincingly.

His mother simply huffed with a not-so amused scowl tugging down on her skin like a barbell.

“We'll see that you don’t. Keep that cursed wit of yours under control and stay pleasant. Even if it kills you.”

_‘Of course, it wouldn’t matter if it killed me,’_ Wilson thought. _‘This is only the deciding moment of my entire future. It’s not as if it’s about me or anything.’_

* * *

Wilson unlocked and shrugged open the splintered door whilst carrying a few brown paper bags. With heavy bags accentuating the tired grimace slathered over his stubble-ridden jaw, he let out a gruff noise of frustration. He glanced back out the door at his bicycle lying limp in the dirt with its dull yellow paint disappointingly scratched all up. It was new and bright and something he took quite a lot of pride in once, but that was a long time before he was struggling to carry meager groceries into a practically decaying structure. He grunted as he hopped inside with one foot and used the other to hook around the door frame and pulled it so that it would close. He nearly lost his balance before both of his heels were firmly planted back onto the floor, but he didn’t fall, and was thus able to continue his odyssey to the kitchen table. As he made his way there, a familiar voice snidely called out from the radio on the counter.

“So, finally you’re home. And after wasting all that time in town. Do you at least have those bolts and screws you said you needed so much?”

Wilson grunted in affirmation before placing the tall bags down, causing some of the contents to clink against one another.

Maxwell let out an offended noise. “That better not be what I think it is.”

Wilson glanced over at the radio, not having enough energy in him to honor his tradition of (what he felt were) witty and tasteful comebacks. He merely shrugged. “I’ve been working for a few days straight. Even science needs a break now and again.”

Maxwell could be heard audibly tapping his fingers in annoyance. Wilson considered what they looked like. He never found himself trying to gauge anyone’s appearance by the sound of their finger-tapping, but here he was, having his exhausted brain latch onto any stimulus he could to distract himself from idle thoughts. For some inexplicable reason, he found himself visualizing Maxwell to look something like Henry Ford.

“You got a full rest last night,” Maxwell said plainly. “I don’t see how you could be even a bit exhausted; especially not after how jittery and upbeat you’ve been since I contacted you for the first time.”

Wilson groaned softly to himself out of frustration as he took out a bottle of wine. Since prohibition passed, getting one’s mitts on any kind of alcohol was a pain as well as a very illegal act. Luckily for Wilson, the town down the road was one untouched by the strict policing he’d find back in the cities. He found himself considering how much New York had changed since his last visit as he absentmindedly rifled around for a corkscrew.

Maxwell, after being silent for a while, spoke up again. This time, there was an unmistakable curiosity driving his tone. “Is there perhaps a reason that you go so long without sleeping?”

Wilson’s hand twinged at the question as he tried to focus on getting the cork out of the wine bottle. “What do you mean by that?”

Maxwell hummed innocently. “Oh, nothing at all, Pal. It just seems that bit of sleep only further drained you.”

Wilson’s lips shifted as he chewed idly on the inside of his cheek, trying to come up with something to say and coming up blank. Instead, he actually felt himself laugh softly, much to his own surprise.

“Well, I never really got a lot of sleep anyway. Always too energetic.” He smirked. “It reminds me of something or another my father would say. ‘If you keep that fire goin’ the way it is, your gonna be all burned out before you’re twenty.’ Well, I’m thirty-two and I’m still passionate about what I believe in.” Wilson stayed silent for a minute, but his triumph melted into something akin to regret. “…Take that old man, I guess.” Though it was supposed to be a statement he imagined himself reveling in, the gentleman scientist felt a little hollow at the words. It didn’t feel like such a victory, now that no one was here to see it.

Maxwell stayed quiet for a moment. “…The man you speak of is Byron Edward Higgsbury, yes?”

Wilson felt a stick of indignation in his gut. “...Yeah, that’s him. B.E. Banks. I guess it’s probably unavoidable that you’d know about him, since he is one of the wealthier sorts of the Midwest.”

Maxwell let out a “Hm,” in surprise. “Something tells me that you don’t get along so well with your roots.”

Wilson glowered before picking up the uncorked bottle, and stared down at the green tint the wine-less section at the top cast over the table. “You know, as the scientist here, I feel like I ought to be the one doing the psychoanalyzing. But no, I didn’t actually mind my father so much. It wasn’t him that I had most of my squabbles with anyway.” He didn’t bother to waste more time looking for a wineglass, as he didn’t want to spend the time cleaning off all the caked dust on the glassware. He eagerly tilted the bottle back with his lips planted firmly on the crown of it, swallowing down a few hard gulps. It was cheap wine, but he didn’t drink enough to understand the difference.

Maxwell carefully replied. “Ah, so you had a problem with other members of your household?”

“For a box, you sure have quite a nose, Nosey McNoserton.” Wilson smacked his lips dryly before taking another swig more careless than the last. “I guess so. I mean- she was nice. Sometimes, I feel. It was confusing. She – my mother, I mean – would seem so encouraging a lot of the time. Asking me about my plans for university and such. But it wasn’t _really_ about me, though. You know?” He huffed and moved to his armchair, sinking into it gratefully. “Like… she had a way of asking you questions just to get a specific answer out of you. She didn’t actually care about how you felt… it was a passive-aggressive jab at getting you to do what she wanted. She did that for just about everything. You know people like that, right?”

“You’re losing me here, Higgsbury.”

Wilson chewed at the inside of his cheek momentarily before speaking again. “…Yeah, maybe I am.” The alcohol slapped against the inside of the glass as it was tilted again to let its contents into the scientist’s system. “I don’t know, really. I feel like she just had to get her way all the time. It didn’t even matter what anyone else actually felt as long as she had her head set on something.”

Maxwell chuckled slightly.

Wilson glanced over. “What’s with the laugh?”

“Sounds a bit like you, Pal.”

Wilson froze before staring back down at the tall glass with a furrowed brow. It was at least a third empty now. “…No, no. It’s not the same. Sure, I get set on things, I’ll admit it. But I never went about going and… getting on other people to live vicariously through their accomplishments just to take the credit at the end. That’s what Mother would do.”

Maxwell was silent now as he listened to Wilson carry on.

“Ever since I was little, my old man was never around. He was either off on some business or he used me as an accessory to his warm family-man image. Not that I minded, though… it gave him an excuse to pay attention to me now and again. He wasn’t really my dad, though… he wasn’t around enough to be.” He took another, much longer swig from the bottle this time, greedily sucking down the contents and barely getting his lips off the glass before getting right back into it. ”But when I meet a father figure I actually wanna follow in the footsteps in… nawwwwhh, that’s when they care. Especially mom… stars and atoms, mom. Yappin’ at me all day… _‘Why don’cha get a real interest? Why not apply all that math to a future business degree?’_ Maybe it’s cause dad never got me to care enough about whatever borin’ shit he was on about all day ‘cause the dead-eyed bastard never bothered to _look_ at me. How am I supposed to care about him more than Adley, huh? At least HE cared about me. How can you let your own brother waste away in the middle of nowhere when HE’S the one who bothered to raise me at all?!”

Wilson got up, feeling the built-up annoyance in him turn into passionate anger from the alcohol’s influence. “Oh- Oh and let’s not forget the parties. Oh STARS, the parties. I think I’d take Father talking about accounting any day over having to get into another suit. And they get all- all _pissy_ about me standing up for myself. Why? Because I don’t want to get into business? Suck it, Grant, I wanna be a scientist!” Oh, there goes more of the wine, though this time some of it is dribbling down his chin and onto the floor as he drank and subsequently waved it around to exemplify his statements. “And… and his… stupid goatee! Why should I have to impress some shmuck in a goatee to get into business school? He looks like some elaborate villain in a film! Call me spoiled and stuck-up all you want, I don’t care about you, your connections OR your extremely awful fashion decisions.

Suddenly though, Wilson got quiet and looked down at the bottle. He was wobbly on his feet, and he grimaced as he wiped a hand loosely across his brow. “…Oh, I’m drunk, aren’t I, Max?”

Maxwell, after having been surprisingly quiet through Wilson’s rant, finally spoke up. He sounded surprisingly soft, and much less contempt was in his tone than before. “Sit down before you go and break something, Higgsbury.”

Wilson sighed, but complied. His shoulders slumped as he fell back into his armchair. He didn’t ever like Alcohol. He didn’t like how it made his head spin and how it dulled his senses. He couldn’t stand the smell on his breath or the dryness in his throat. For lack of better words, it made him feel like crap. Why then, he wondered, did he decide to waste his money on a bottle of cheap wine?

He knew the answer, though. Subconsciously, he’d been thinking about it this whole time. The first time he got drunk. It would’ve stayed as the only time, had it not been for the events of today, though. He realized it soon after he blurted out about the party that, in hindsight, probably changed his destiny forever. It led him to this exact place, and in the perfect position to be contacted by the man behind the curtain, or in this case, the radio. Maybe, though, this is when things would start looking up. Perhaps getting a hold of Wilson was kind, charitable Maxwell’s way of bringing him back onto the road to greatness. It didn’t matter if there wasn’t anyone here to see his victory now. Soon enough, they’d all see that he was right all along.  
  
“…after all, it’s always better to be laughed at than to be wrong…”

“Excuse me?”

Wilson glanced over tiredly. “…Oh sorry… did I say that out loud?...”

Maxwell audibly sighed on the other end. “…Why don’t you just sleep it off, Pal? We can go over this some other time, when you’re not spilling all over yourself. After all, you’ve got work you need to catch up on tomorrow.”

The younger man glanced out the window to see the late-afternoon sun slipping past the thick treetops, and let out a small hum. “Oh, I really let time get away from me…”

“You most certainly did. And though this may be a ‘Nosey Mac Noseyton’ sort of observation to make, I’d say you need to get a bit of shuteye, Pal.”

Wilson yawned instinctively at the sound of that. “…Yeah, maybe I do… maybe I do…”  
  
He placed the nearly empty bottle on the table next to him before snuggling back into the old cushions. As he nestled into them, he could swear he smelled a familiar smell. The smell of beard oil and sharp chemicals all mixed together into a cacophony; one that wasn’t of noise but one of smells. They were all smells that made him feel safe and reminded of when he was a young boy.

With eyes slowly closing over from decadent relaxation, Wilson quietly muttered out his closing words.

“Good night, Henry Ford…”

“…What?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for taking so long to get this out. School's a pain and it's been an interesting month. I'm getting back into the groove of writing after a week of building my motivation back up, and I plan on releasing chapters much more regularly now!


	4. Welding the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After last night's ramble, Wilson can't shake his embarrassment from oversharing about his past. It was always easier to keep shameful memories in a closed-casket funeral rather than to look his errors in the face, after all. No matter how small.

_Head aches. Breathe in. Shift position. Head aches. Itchy scratchy. Hot. Cold. Head Aches. Head fucking aches..._

Sometimes trying to sleep through a full night wasn’t worth it to him; especially not when Wilson felt this awful. He opened his eyes to lazily focus in on his dark environment, finally abandoning the guise of rest. He half-expected to hear the radio crackle to life and to be met with the sound of his lab partner criticizing his poor sleep schedule, but after staring at it for a good few minutes, it occurred to him that Maxwell probably needed to sleep too.   
  
‘Well, that would only make sense,’ Wilson reminded himself. ‘Any man does.’

Maybe it was because of all the strange “unknown forces” stuff that made it hard to picture the reality of that voice. What was Maxwell like, really? Did he have a minimalist taste? Maybe he liked extravagant furniture with bright flowers and a rococo flare. What kinds of things did he own? Did he sit in a love seat like him when reading his favorite books? Speaking of reading, he didn’t even know what _genres_ he liked. Wilson never actually realized just how _little_ about Maxwell he knew at all.

‘Why then,’ he wondered, ‘did Maxwell know so much about me?’

Now that left a slightly uneasy aftertaste in his mouth.

Wilson couldn’t take the silence anymore. Silence and night were bad for his mind, and made him feel too much on edge. He pushed himself up gently from his seat and made his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, but didn’t bother getting himself a glass, and merely shoved his face under the faucet. The water was crisp and cold from the filters he installed himself, but it did his wakeful troubles no favors. Neither did it help his slight hangover. It was an unfortunately nostalgic feeling that reminded him of the morning after the-

**No.** He wasn’t going to do that to himself right now. He was embarrassed enough about whatever scene he made in front of Maxwell to start another one about another regret in his life. He’d just have to bottle this up and deal with it again later… like he always did.

After a few more sips from the faucet, he cranked it off and sighed gruffly into the sink. Just a few more weeks of building in the attic and he won’t ever have to think about the past again.

Ever.

* * *

“-And then you were off sloshing it around like you were some kind of buccaneer. You realize this is a very, _very_ important mission I am placing on you, correct? What knowledge I gave you before wasn’t even scratching the surface!”

With his back facing the radio and a hammer clutched in his right hand, Wilson mouthed ‘blah blah blah’ to himself in a childish manner as he readied a nail. It was the best he could do to not feel overwhelmingly self-conscious about what he was being derided for.

Maxwell cleared his throat impatiently. “Are you listening to me right now, Mr. Higgsbury?”

“I would like to, I honestly would, but if I take the time to listen to you scorn me like a beaten dog for the next 3 to 5 business days I’m going to end up hammering my thumb on accident.” WHAM! He brought the hammer down onto the metal piece as he held it in place with his off-hand.

“Would you like to repeat that again, but more _politely_ Wilson?  
  
Something about Maxwell’s sudden drop in tone felt uncomfortably insidious when coupled with his only use of the scientist’s first name thus far. The nagging sensation at his spine from a few days ago was back, but only for the moments that Wilson’s playfully teasing attitude sunk. “A-Alright, alright… apologies.”

“Good,” Maxwell muttered. “Now… once you finish your final work on this basic frame, you know what you’re going to need next, don’t you?”  
  
He nodded. “I scrounged up as much scrap metal as I could find. It’s old, but it’s the right material. Steel alloy, just like you asked.”  
  
“No, not the metal bits.”  
  
“…The screws?”  
  
“No!... Urgh, never mind… you still need to get the welding on the front done anyway. We’ll get to it when we get to it…”  
  
“That’s reassuring…” Wilson wiped at his brow as he went back to hammering. Silence filled the room for a while, except for faint staticky feedback of the device on the corner of the worktable. Wilson used the opportunity to pick up his welding helmet (though it wasn’t exactly a custom-fit, as he had purchased it used and cheap) before fastening it on the best he could and grabbing his torch, turning it around in his fingerless gloves.

“…You _have_ welded before, haven’t you?”

“Who’s the scientist here? Oh right, me. I’ve done this before, don’t worry, I got this… it’s only a little bit of eye-damage if I mess up. My right one is already worse-off than the left, so it’s no biggie as long as I look with the right one.”

“You’re positively mad, you know.”

“I don’t think so-“ Wilson grunted as he slid down the mask and cracked his neck. He began lifting up the first piece of lightweight metal and adjusting it in its place. “I’m just creative.”

He turned on the torch and began welding, being surprisingly diligent and careful with his movements. This really wasn’t his first time around the block it seemed, but Maxwell soon became bored with the monotonous pattern of metal adjusting and the loud searing of the flame. “…So, who was it you were talking about last night,” he asked casually.

Wilson switched off the torch for a bit. “What did you say?”

“I asked who you were blubbering about last night,” he repeated with some frustration.

Wilson’s eyes darted away nervously. Thankfully for him, his uncomfortable expression was hidden by the mask around his face. “Erm… I can’t remember entirely…”

“Someone named ‘Grant’?”

The bottle of that memory he tried so tirelessly to tighten the cork of busted open like a fine champagne celebrating his shame. He anxiously scratched at the stray hairs leading down his neck before shrugging his shoulders. “Er… I don’t entirely remember his last name right now, but he was the headmaster of a University my father wanted me to get into into when I was.. 19? Yes, I believe I was 19 at the time.”

Maxwell let out a knowing hum. “I assume you didn’t get in”

Wilson laughed under his breath. “Absolutely not. I wasn’t about to waste my time in business school for the rest of my youth, but my mother really pushed for me to impress him at a small party and to build connections. It was one of those fancy rich get-togethers that I had to wear a suit to. It was all about gossiping and status and whatnot.”

“You sound like you very much dislike that crowd,” the radio man mused.

“Oh, I cannot stand parties in the slightest. I’d rather be at home,” he sighed.

“So what happened?”

He wasn’t entirely ready to answer that question, but it was so long ago now, so why did it bother him so much to talk about? He knew it was because he considered the event to be the spark of all his worst mistakes, but at the end of the day, the event itself was long gone from his reality. Plus, he was about to achieve all his wildest dreams! Why lament about it any longer? It wasn’t like Maxwell could just get up and go talk to a million strangers about it. The scientist relented and let out a soft exhale.

“Well, basically I was so nervous, that I felt like I was going to vomit by the time I got there. I didn’t want that university to be my future at all. I got myself so numb and wine-drunk that by the time Grant Whatshisname came up to me, I mistook him for another patron and said to his face that I hated everything he stood for and said his facial hair looked like a rodent was trying to copulate with his face. And then I got escorted out.”

It felt a lot less terrible to get that off his chest than he thought it would, and it actually delighted him to hear Maxwell truly _laugh_ from that radio. The idea that a memory that caused him a lot of embarrassment and pain could be reclaimed into something that could bring someone else laughter felt like warm water running down his back. Humor really was something nice to cling to.

“Of course you find a way to do something like that,” the dignified man laughed. “You were young though. I suppose you shouldn’t let something so far in the past affect you.”

Wilson secretly smiled to himself from managing to win Maxwell’s approval. He can hardly believe he coaxed so much emotion out of the snobby individual… that was a victory all in itself.

“That’s true. I have a lot of other stuff I’ve done that’s way more stupid to lie awake at night thinking about anyway,” he half-joked. It was actually much more darkly true than he wanted to admit, but he told enough stories to his one-man audience for a day and a half. “Now Maxwell, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go back to welding.”

“You’d better, Mr. Higgsbury,” he muttered.

“after all… there’s so much in store for you once you’re complete...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I hope everyone's staying safe these days. Figured I ought to continue writing due to the support I've been getting for this fic! I felt a little embarrassed by the past chapters and I may fix them up eventually. For now, I'll focus on adding some new ones while I have the time. Hope you enjoy!


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